Blog:Proleno

Terry De Havilland is the ultimate Rock & Roll shoe designer. His haute couture shoes are lusted after; they are desired. They adorn the feet of beautiful women. They demand to be presented to the world on a pedestal, as they are, timeless works of art. Fiona Gall also loves De Havilland’s shoes and in their honour created this fantastical chandelier ‘Cinderella’s Revenge’.

Fiona, designer of the Emerald Faerie bespoke lighting collections, has now created a chandelier that encapsulates the luxury, glamour, customized finish and detail inherent in both her and De Havilland’s bespoke creations. ‘Cinderella’s Revenge’ reinterprets the design of his shoes echoing and celebrating the glamour of the fabrics and adornments, the shape of the 7-inch heels, and the very tools used to make them. It amplifies their theatrical presence.

Inspired by this extravagant homage, De Havilland returned the compliment and designed a pair of shoes especially for Cinderella’s Revenge. With heels and bespoke leatherwork in gold & silver iguana skin, these shoes now form the apex of the chandelier. Suspended beneath the crown, the spotlit shoes hang surrounded by a curtain of tubular glass, metallic chain, Swarovski crystal, and other carefully crafted details. Miniature magnifying glasses add an Alice-in-Wonderland playfulness allowing viewers to take a closer look, admire the craftsmanship, the signature metalwork with an 8-ft drop and fibre optic illumination. The chandelier is a towering altar to the love of shoes. Its tubular glass fringes cause light to subtly fade amidst a trail of luxuriously covered heels, all elegantly trailing along the floor.

Designer Francisca Prieto has created a stunning new addition to her range of contemporary accessories: The Bodoni Ornament Placemat and Coaster Set.

This exquisite set of concentric circles comprises a placemat, coaster and smaller coaster, so you can use as one unit or scatter separately onto your table. Interested in typography, Francisca experimented with ornaments of the font Bodoni to create the delicate designs. The graphics have been screen-printed onto the enamel and by firing the piece at 830^oC the design becomes embedded. The result is a surface that is incredibly hardwearing, with exceptional colour stability.

Ideal for interior and exterior settings or perfect as a heat resistant protector for your table, they are a great gift idea for anyone passionate about unique, exclusive and decorative design classics.

Denmark’s Anders Gordon has designed the simply named Green Chair although, interestingly, it’s also available in white and orange. I have no idea if the chair’s name changes according to your colour choice! Manufactured in aluminium it’s a lightweight and really quite funky chair that would look great in an office reception or meeting room where you hope that your “sitter” will not hang around for too long as I can’t imagine that it’s the most comfortable of seats. That said, I haven’t actually sat in one, so if anyone knows better do let us know!

Canadian Éric Sauvé brings us his Broken Glass Chandelier. With an 80cms diameter it appears to be available in either green or clear glass. I can’t find any price details but further information can be found at his website along with his contact details.

Selfportrait is a graduation project based on the emotions and suppressed feelings experienced by Netherlands based Ka-Lai Chan. The chair expresses the designer’s own personality and character.

Ka-Lai says:

“In the past I have always found myself to be a quiet and introvert person. I suppressed my own emotions and didn’t dare to show my feelings to other people. I was afraid that people would find me weird if I showed them the real me. It felt like there was something growing on me getting bigger and bigger like a tumour. I always tend to hide my personality, but on the other hand I want nothing more than to open up and just be myself.”

Ka-Lai Chan is a 2009 graduate product designer from the Utrecht School of Arts. More details about this up and coming young designer can be found at her website.

Italian designer, Filippo Protasoni, introduces the Platone, an indirect wall uplighter. Manufactured in a matt white painted thermoplastic moulded shell with an aluminium reflector and metal wall support. Also available with a fluorescent fitting.

More details at http://www.prandina.it.

From German designer Susanne Schmitt comes the Schmitthut. Schmitt says: “A hat is a message for the sky”: create your own message for the sky!

The pattern can be used to produce a completely original and rainproof hat. The template can be decorated, painted or printed. After decoration, cut out the four parts along the outer line and either sew or glue the parts together.

More details and a list of supplers at http://www.schmitthut.de

Works by Atelier Van Lieshout and Gabriella Crespi will be on show at the Pavilion of Arts & Design London, which is being held in Berkeley Square, London W1 from 14-18 October.

Design Museum, London, 18 November 2009 – 14 March 2010

For 40 years, from 1955 until 1995, Dieter Rams designed or oversaw the design of over 500 products for the German electronics manufacturer Braun, as well as furniture for Vitsœ. Audio equipment, calculators, shavers and shelving systems are just some of the products created by Dieter Rams. Each item holds a special place in the history of industrial and furniture design and has established Dieter Rams as one of the most influential designers of the late 20^th century.

This exhibition is the first UK definitive retrospective of Dieter Rams’ career in over 12 years. Showcasing landmark designs for both Braun and Vitsœ, this exhibition will examine how Dieter Rams’ design ethos inspired and challenged perceptions of domestic design and assesses his lasting influence on today’s design landscape. Archive film footage, models, sketches and prototypes will be displayed alongside specially commissioned interviews with Dieter Rams’ contemporaries, which include Jonathon Ive, Jasper Morrision, Sam Hecht and Naoto Fukasawa.

Dieter Rams’ elegant products challenged original concepts of design thought by reducing electrical switches to a minimum and arranging them in an orderly manner. Transparent plastics and wooden veneers were mixed and colour schemes were limited to tones of pure whites and greys, the only splash of colour being allocated to switches and dials.

Dieter Rams defined an elegant, legible, yet rigorous visual design language, identified through his ‘Ten Principles’ of good design, which, amongst others stated that good design should be innovative, aesthetic, durable and useful. Heavily influenced by the Bauhaus and Ulm School of Art in Germany, Dieter Rams pioneered a design spirit which embraced modernity and placed functionality above everything else, resulting in designs that were free of decoration, simple in function and embodied a cohesive sense of order. Born in Germany in 1932, Dieter Rams trained in architecture and interior design before joining Braun in 1955 where he took advantage of electronic and engineering advances made during the Second World War to realise a sophisticated re-interpretation of domestic appliances.

From Australian designer Marc Pascal comes the Orchid Light, a feature pendant/table/floor-standing light.

Inspired by sensuous orchid flowers, each flower is hand dyed sometimes up to three different times, layering the colours in surprising and unexpected ways. Each light is made to order in any colour combination you choose!

More details can be found at Marc’s website.